Something Wilder

by Christina Lauren

All this to say: we wrote this book to be a fun, swoon-filled escape from the real world, not to serve as a guide to your own adventure. (If you follow our route, you will die, lol.)

Bradley prioritized telling a good story down the road over personal comfort and common sense every time.

He was the teasing stand-in uncle and the joking, lighthearted counterbalance to Leo’s overprotective and overcompensating tendencies.

In the end, was it better or worse to hear him go on and on about something he knew a lot about or something he didn’t?

They were both broke and totally alone, and they quickly bonded in a way only two women can when they’ve had enough of their lives being turned upside down by the impulses and bad decisions of men.

But now she’d been at it for seven years, which was a long time to be at something she’d started out of necessity and barely liked to begin with.

She wanted to put down roots, but growing roots wasn’t easy in the desert.

“Quiet doesn’t necessarily mean tame.”

“This is why people in movies do stupid shit for money. Maybe Cassidy had it right, and we should just rob a bank.” “Didn’t work out so well for him,” Lily reminded her. “Because he wasn’t a woman. Men are idiots.”

she focused on the abused wood of the table. It had been worn smooth over the years, scored and burned in some places and buckling from the weight of time in others. Lily could relate.

That body used to belong to me, Lily marveled. That man was mine.

“What do we get if we win?” Terry asked. Nicole grinned around a toothpick. “A chance to die like a man.”

“Had to remind myself that once upon a time I was good at something other than sitting at a desk.” The unexpected vulnerability in his tone hit her like a punch to the stomach. “And? Are you satisfied?” “Satisfied?” Finally, a real smile. “Not yet.”

They were staring at each other. It was probably too long. Then it was definitely too long, but something happened in the depths of it. A tether, connecting them across time.

“And you raised her.” A proud smile broke through. “Yeah.” “That must have been so hard. On both of you.” “She’s the best thing I’ve done with my life.

The fire was gently warm, and somehow it matched the energy between them. Calming. Thawing.

She’d seen herself as the wounded party for so long, but now had the nauseating realization that they were all simply the victims of shitty circumstances.

“Can you believe that was all done by rainwater searching for the sea?” “That makes me a little sad,” Walter said. Leo had never wished he could fly, but he did just then. There was something about the canyon that made him want to explore, to swoop from the top of one red rock pillar to another and down into the literal maze of intersecting slots. It was both exquisite and sinister.

“You’re not supposed to leave camp alone,” Nicole said. “If a cougar gets hold of you, I’m not hauling what’s left of your body back to town.” “If a cougar gets me?” He laughed, sucking his teeth. “Come on, Nicky, you’re not that old yet.”

“It was an accident!” Bradley screamed. “Why would you say that?” “She asked!” Walter screamed back. “I didn’t want to be rude!”

I knew he was gross, but I never thought he was violent.”

Loyally, Walter piped up to tell Bradley, “I actually think supermarket cupcakes are better anyway.”

He felt uncorked, like he’d been shoved into a tiny space and was bubbling over, too large for his old skin.

“I’m not saying everything is okay. It’s a mess, frankly. But I’m glad you’re here with me for all of this.

But I’m here now. With you. I don’t mean— I mean, you matter to me. Even if we don’t know each other anymore. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

she’d never needed Leo for a thing, but he wanted her to want him anyway.

He hadn’t felt this present in so long. Air hit his skin differently, landed in his lungs with more of a punch. He was aware of his pulse pounding and the handfuls of times he’d laughed out loud in the past few days. Here was color, and sound, and heat.

Lily liked this plan, a lot. Too much to look at it directly.

If it’s easy, Duke whispered in her memory, then it isn’t worth it.

He was right, but she hated it. Hated how complicated this was becoming, hated how she’d failed to plan for everything, and hated even more that her desire to push forward outweighed her desire to call it quits.

I hope Leo finds the money, she thought. I hope he finds it and buys the ranch in my honor and lives there alone with the horses and Nicole. I hope he never fucking gets over me.

He was always so calm, always adaptable. She realized, watching him, that he met challenges as if they were an expected part of his path. By contrast, she resented every tiny roadblock.

“You don’t have to feel the same. I’m just explaining where I am. It seems important to not leave anything unsaid.”

and she was never going to carve the shape of her life around a man again.

And if he stayed, she couldn’t even promise not to fuck it up, but it wouldn’t be because she didn’t want him.

A job was a means to an end, a means to make ends meet. A life was what he could have with her.

“I want to be very clear that it’s okay if you don’t feel the same.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But I lived my life in the most responsible, boring way imaginable for the past decade.”

realize I’m being rigid here, but I have to be. I can’t bend to suit what works for you.” “Then let me bend,” he told her. Lily stared at him. “What does that even mean?” “It means you figure out exactly what you want your life to look like, and I find a way to fit into it.”

It was, in design and location, only a place to provide shelter, not comfort.

“it’s okay to want this, and go after this, and still be mad, too.”

Leo felt like he was waking up, as if the intervening ten years had been a nightmare, as if he’d just closed his eyes at the ranch and a lifetime of anguish passed behind his lids, and then he opened them again and found Lily exactly the same:

Sex was sex, but love was a different language, and Leo hadn’t spoken it in ten years.

she was over him, pinning him, finishing him, staring down with victory at the mess she’d made of him.

Lily’s first instinct was always to draw away and leap to the worst-case scenario, which, being honest, was usually her life. But she was tired. Couldn’t she have this? Even if only for a few more days?

It was her turn at serious. “No one knows me the way you do.” He grew quiet, the air warm and heavy all around them. “Remember that later when you’re trying to tell me why we won’t work out. But first…” A swarm of anxieties flapped

She nodded to Jay’s gun. “His aim better be good because if I get to you first, I’m gonna reach down your throat, grab your balls, and show ’em to you.”

“He and I are damaged but not broken,” Bradley assured her. “Every relationship has a low moment.”

He didn’t know how she was so calm right then. Maybe because it was her turn to be steady, and Leo’s turn to be lost.

She loved this face. She loved him. She couldn’t imagine finding another face anywhere that she would love this much.